“My heart is moved by all I cannot save”

What if the Oregon Petition names were real?

The infamous “Oregon Petition” is the source of the various climate change Denier claims that 17,000, 31,000, 60,000 etc scientists “have signed a petition that…”

Peter Sinclair does a nice presentation telling the basic story of the Oregon Petition, so I leave it to him:

The Oregon Petition

I well remember when the updated Petition was released last year. I immediately thought:

“Right. Real scientists would sign a petition organized by some one man Oregon backwater. They wouldn’t publish refutations of the science in the literature, nor bring it up at conferences and symposia, nor use the various professional organizations and societies at their disposal, nor work through the National Academies and various professional institutions. Nope, not a chance.

For sure they’d just sign an on-line petition put up by someone who can’t even manage decent HTML [It’s improved … the original was much worse]. Real credible … and who was supposed to believe this? brain damaged rodents? children who hadn’t read ‘How and Why Wonder Books’?”

Of course the petition turned out to be even more ridiculous than it initially seemed (links at bottom). Still, the Petition found an audience gullible and desperate enough to accept it as credible.

A history of the Petition in terms of the key players, and an excellent breakdown of the signatories can be found at “The Global Warming Debate” starting about 1/3rd down the page.

Predictably, like all of the Denier frauds, despite the Petition being repeatedly exposed as a hoax it continues to be used as “evidence” that climate change science is not valid.

The most recent outbreak is in association with the NIPPC Report fraud. Some of the Denialophere are even claiming that the Petition’s signatories were affirming the validity of the NIPCC report, a report released a year after the Petition was.

In fairness it should be noted that the NIPCC report is nothing more than a rehash of the same nonsense of the earlier version that appeared last year, also after the Petition’s release. So even though it is still an absurdly idiotic claim, it is not necessarily as extreme as it seems.

What if the names were real?

There is one thing has always fascinated me about the Petition though … specifically, that even if it were not a fraud, it would still be meaningless, completely and utterly meaningless. The Deniers create so much Sturm and Drang about the validity of the names, and it doesn’t matter.

“Arthur Robinson has solicited the opinions of the wrong group of people in the wrong way and drawn the wrong conclusions about any possible consensus among relevant and qualified scientists regarding the hypothesis of human-caused global warming.”

But let’s leave that aside too.

Robinson claims the Petition includes 31,000 scientists, 9,000 with PhDs (and the other 22,000 have what credential that makes them “scientists”?). Let’s pretend they’re all real scientists.

So what?

If the premise is that this is a HUGE number (as many in the Denialosphere have tried to claim, and still do), then what is our basis for comparison?

Except, notwithstanding the extreme parochialism of the American Deniers, climate change is actually a global issue. It involves the global scientific community (who knew?), and the Petition has international signatories, so the real baseline for comparison is the global community.

There are an estimated 63 million scientists in the world, so even if the names were real, the Petition would have managed a stunning 0.005% of the scientific community.

It’s a fair bet that a far larger proportion of the scientific community smoke Gitanes, or collects antique watches, or are certifiably insane … all of which are just as meaningless as the Petition.

As is so often the case, clever readers have made variants of this point in the comments on this page, as have other blogs (I trained as an academic … I do not have original thoughts ;-) ).

Now, to his credit Robinson noted that “Science shouldn’t be done by poll, he explains. “The numbers shouldn’t matter. But if they want warm bodies, we have them.” ASIDE: “ warm bodies” is not literally true since a number of the signatories are dead and/or fictional. However, the observation that science is about facts, not numbers, is true.

Of course this same point is generally put forward by the Deniers as a pretext for dismissing the scientific consensus. Asking people to take anyone’s word based on solely credential would be an ‘Appeal to Authority‘ logical fallacy. An irrelevant dismissal since the consensus is merely a professional assessment of the validity of the science underlying our understanding of climate change.

The premise of the Petition is not that for some mysterious reason the signatories do not accept the scientific consensus, but that they agree with the ‘science’ (alleged) that accompanied the Petition.

That alleged “science” is a ridiculous collection of distortions, errors, and outright falsifying of data (no surprises there). It is so bad that no one with any knowledge of climate science and a shred of integrity could take it seriously.

If the science were actually valid then only one advocate would have been needed.

Given that it is total gibberish, 31,000,000,000,000 signatures couldn’t save it. Not surprisingly most people note this fact and move on.

But let’s consider this a bit further. Not all of the signatures are bogus, and many of the real ones do have some sort of scientific credential.

Given that, what does their signature on the Petition actually mean?

Professional incompetence

I suggest that in effect, the signatories have made at least one, and possibly both of two statements, albeit inadvertently. They are saying that:

1) I, the undersigned, in an act of flagrant professional misconduct, stake my professional reputation and credibility on an issue that I have not the slightest understanding of. Further, I attest to the validity of a document that I do not understand, or most probably did not even read.

or

2) I, the undersigned, carefully reviewed the ‘science’ accompanying this petition, and I am clearly so uninformed and/or incompetent that I stake my professional credibility on what is obviously nonsense.

Regardless of which, to the extent that some of the names on the Petition are real, what we have here is a list of those who have self-identified as guilty of misconduct and/or total incompetence. After the professional Deniers, they are probably the last people you would want to consult for any sort of opinion about climate change.

What about their professional credibility?

What if a petition appeared where 31,000 medical practitioners claimed that cancer was caused by thinking impure thoughts? or 31,000 professional electricians which claimed that electricity could and should be conducted through spaghetti rather than metal wires?

I imagine that in either case the respective professional associations would be curious about who’s names appeared on those petitions, and maybe even wish to discuss their qualifications with them.

I am not advocating any sort of witch hunt for the Oregon Petition signatories. I am pointing out that when anyone uses their credential as a source of authority, they are the ones who have made their professional competence an issue. Having made it an issue, it is then fair game for others to call that competence into question.

In summary:

Even if the names were real, and

even if methodology wasn’t hopelessly flawed, and

even if the number of signatories actually was significant, and

even if the signatories were competent and had actually read the document,

it would still be utterly meaningless. It is the science and only the science that counts.

As Robin Williams said:

Reality, what a concept!

In reality, to the extent that there are real names on the Petition, what we have is a declaration of professional misconduct and/or incompetence.

Surely a cause for profound embarrassment. The signatories may want to contemplate that before they stake their reputations (such as they now are) on anything else.

33 Responses

Petitions are supposed to be a snap shot of opinion.
Someone that signed a petition 20 years ago, may have changed their opinion after the petition ended.

If a petition is left open, then there should be a mechanism for removing your name from it later!

Otherwise a petition should have an end date.

I can imagine a scenario where a petition keeps going and ends up having more people on it than the total living population!

Does a dead person have a vote?
—-

Not to quibble, but your signature on a petition means whatever the accompanying text says it means.
The premise is always that you have read and understood that text before signing. What it means could be an opinion, or a demand, or, as in this case, attesting to the validity of something on the basis of ones qualifications.
Mike

Now there’s an ‘Angels on a pin’ question … which list is harder to get off of? the Terrorist “no-fly”? or a bogus Denier list?

I have heard (but cannot corroborate) that some people have successfully gotten off of the no-fly list. I have never heard of anyone getting their name removed from any of the Denier lists no matter how fraudulent or false their placement there was.
Mike

Aha!
Welcome back Mike..excellent good deal.
I’ve been a wee bit out of the picture myself.
Something to do with crash?
Whatever…
Back to subject at hand:
Anyone who has even a few brain cells floating between their ears knows that the petition is it not worth the paper it’s printed on.
I was tempted to put my best Bud’s name on the petition, but when I told him of my planned prank he gave me that German Shepherd look and that was the end of that.
No sense of humour….woof :P

Right. Real scientists would sign a petition organized by some one man Oregon backwater.

The Oregon Institute is not a one-man band!

On their home page they state that they have six faculty members – and to prove it they list all eight of them in the left hand sidebar.

Maybe two of them are deceased, or imaginary, or Art Robinson just isn’t very good at counting…

Anyone who is thinking about signing should read about the Robinson Curriculum that they are pushing as well. Amongst other things, they advocate:

A complete abstinence from sugar and honey
Absolutely no television – throw your set(s) away
No child should have access to a computer until they have a thorough grasp of mathematics (including calculus)

As climate denialists, these guys are actually quite funny.
As a source of education, I think they are really quite scary.

On a lighter note, I loved the use of “duelling banjos” in the video clip. :)

I’ll echo TomG (and others in earlier posts) – welcome back.
—-

Not sure all of the “faculty” are one the “campus” much.
And thanks, good to be back. Going to do an explanation post soon, but wanted to get things rolling first.
Mike

I was once a in the Global warming cult like you, fortunately I broke free of the religion. The oregon Petition serves to show that their is no scientific coscesus and it is ludicrous to argue the 31,000 people that signed do not exist or their credentials are any less valid than any one elses. After all a big part of the global warming fear machine is the claim that scientists are all of one mind on the topic and completely uniform in thought or more appropriately faith in regards to global warming.

On the plus side it looks like global warming is receiving it’s crucial death blow in the court of public opinion. After all the science of public opinion in order to push through regressive legislation is all global warming is about. The science can be fabricated or made up as needed by the IPCC.
—-

I’m curious … what exactly is it that makes you imagine that incoherent ranting somehow negates actual facts?

Interesting question, perhaps the most interesting question in the world is- what if? I’m glad to see you did your research and found out that every single person on this petition is fictitious, [1] well done! What if ACORN and other Community Activist, Organizers didn’t get involved and sign up multiple illegal voters… What if? Oh well, I never thought I would beg for Bush to be back in office. How can the “smartest person in the world” be worse than our past President? He’s making Carter look good.
—-

So chris let me put this to you if the 31000 were fake why has the met office suddenly decided to set up there own petition in favor of climate change to prove that the 31000 were wrong. [1] Looks like panic to me as the truth is out there and people are starting to open there eyes to what the NWO are trying to do to take over the world. If the met office were fair and not controlled like the media is then why not have 2 petitions running side by side one for scientists that believe in the theory global warming and one for scientists against the theory of global warming now that would be interesting and fair [2] ……. mind you thats not a word the globalist like is it fair…… no, brainwashing thats what they want and all you people that are going along with this global warming sudo science will soon find out that your life is soon to be destroyed and you liberties taken away to line the pockets of the few bankers that are trying to bring there new world agenda in then they will stamp on you and scrape you off there shoe along with the other 6 billion inocent people in this world that just want to enjoy being free natural people as we were born to be not slaves. [3]
—-

[1] a) Straw man, the MET list has nothing to do with the Oregon fraud; b) the MET list is an assessment of the scientific facts, NOT an empty “believe me, I’m a scientist” appeal to authority fallacy like the Denier lists; c) since the Deniers take advantage of the naive and gullible with their phony lists as per b), it has been necessary to expose their frauds and hoaxes by showing where the real scientific consensus is.

[2] Interesting and fair would be if you could come up with any actual facts instead of bull shit lists and other frauds.

[3] If you have any actual facts, stop hiding them and tell us what they are. As you obviously have none, stop wasting everyone’s time with your paranoid delusions.

[…] of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science." What if the Oregon Petition names were real? *** __________________ "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a […]

[…] The whole 'petition' is a hoax and meaningless. Only the very ignorant and gullible are taken in. What if the Oregon Petition names were real? (small excerpt) Robinson claims the Petition includes 31,000 scientists, 9,000 with PhDs (and the […]

Living in the small state of Delaware, I was curious about who the signers from my state are. Delaware being what it is, it’s actually fairly easy to track down who’s who, so I started doing that. I’ve finished researching up through those whose last names begin with H and have published those on my blog. I’ve continued on, am up to the K’s now, and will publish the next batch soon.

Yes, many of the folks from Delaware who signed the petition are real, but most of them are also in their 70’s and 80’s or deceased; most of those who are still living have been retired for many years, and almost all of them have ties to companies that have a vested interested in denying global warming, like DuPont Chemicals. It also looks like in many cases, someone brought copies of the petition to a meeting of some sort or gave it to their friends, because there are concentrations of people either working for or retired from certain companies in much greater proportion than one would think — DuPont and Hercules (a DuPont spinoff) chemists and engineers, and the University of DE’s engineering department (which supplied a constant stream of graduates to DuPont) are vastly over-represented. There also appear to be a few wives on the list who have no professional credits of their own, and a large number of folks show up on the web only as large donors to local Republican candidates. I was very surprised to find my husband’s grandfather’s best friend as a signer on the list; as far as we knew, he worked at the Playtex plant here in Dover and was about the farthest thing in the world from a scientist. We just knew him as a good old boy like Granddad and a fellow member of Granddad’s hunting club. I doubt seriously that any of these folks have done any in-depth research or even a cursory evaluation of climate-change literature; their reasons for signing the petition are personal and political, and have nothing to do with the actual science.

Hmmm… so what if they were real? Great straw man, but 1. Who cares what a mechanical engineer — typically thought of as a scientist – thinks about climate? Really. I’ve met a lot of people who are self-described scientists — means very little actually. And then you can look at a beautifully done metastudy like this, from a non-scientist (lawyer) whose analytics are too strong for anyone to defeat using the kind of scientific sounding, high-minded scorn to which we are treated in the idiotic article associated with these comments:

If it isn’t recognize by now that the anthropogenically caused weather change idea is a giant idiotic scam — full of pseudo-scientific exaggeration and false claims to boot, then the individual doing the writing is too stupid to understand the transparency of their own clothing.

“a beautifully done metastudy like this, from a non-scientist (lawyer) whose analytics are too strong for anyone to defeat using the kind of scientific sounding, high-minded scorn to which we are treated in the idiotic article associated with these comments”

That’s confusing. You follow this with a link to a simple-minded article by self-styled libertarian John O’Sullivan. Obviously, he is not a lawyer; and he doesn’t claim to be.

Might want to consider this too… but _you_ obviously drank the scientists-are-the-only-people-who-can-think koolaid long ago, so I don’t suppose either science nor just plain straight thinking will move you off your pedestal:

John O’Sullivan is a legal advocate and writer who for several years has litigated in government corruption and conspiracy cases in both the US and Britain. Visit his website. He offers his services free to the site and is not a site employee. Any opinions he expresses are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the site owner.

“a legal advocate and writer who for several years has litigated in government corruption and conspiracy cases in both the US and Britain”

He is not a lawyer. He is not a litigation lawyer or any other type of lawyer.

Perhaps you are not understanding that something is ‘litigated’ when it is before the courts (no matter the merits of the case) for formal court action, a law suit, etc. Parties to these proceedings are litigants. He has been a ‘litigant’ and the litigation was personal.

Legal advocate is a bit of a stretch.

He is a writer, and his prolific conspiracy theory writing and blogging is in the genre of fiction.

I wonder if there is any chance that John has worded his self-description in such a way that some readers would actually think he is a lawyer?

Ooh boy, Jack Uzi you are easily convinced by shysters. Have you ever been taken in by a Ponzi scheme, seems to me that people like you would be ideal fodder for these illegal schemes. You believe what you want to believe not what facts and information tell you. You need to take some elementary logic and science classes.

Applause for Jack Uzi! He’s managed not to be aware of the clarifications (two, no less) that Mike Hulme sent out, in which he completely demolishes Lawrence Solomon’s interpretation. It’s not like those have been kept quiet.

Jack Uzi, you are the one who has been taken in by fraud, deceit and lies.

Please refrain from posting such inflammatory rubbish on a science blog

You are a disgrace to what ever profession (assuming you have one) you belong. Do you actually believe the nonsense you are posting? It is not based on any science which has been conducted by climate scientists. You are a dishonest fraudster.

And please stop all this religious nonsense, we are talking science here, something which you do not seem to understand.

[…] watches, or are certifiably insane … all of which are just as meaningless as the Petition. https://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/…mes-were-real/ I LOVE the "Oregon Petition" it is so easy to debunk!!! The internet is like a herd […]

Science is not determinate until there is repeatable undeniable proof. Until then it is merely an theory, which is not acceptable for public policy. I have yet to hear a single credible scientist state with undeniable proof that we have man-made global warming. Scientific concensus gives us results of aether, which was completely proved wrong. That was one example of many in our history of consensus being wrong, but let’s not forget Einstein who was rejected by consensus as well. Proof came later to bring down consensus. Proof may come later on this subject, but we will all be dead by the time we have any further significant evidence. So we are left with facts, of which we have little on this baby science. It is a statistical nigthmare with poor methodology that has been unfortunately twisted instead of embraced with it’s weakness of suggestion. Had the scientist identified the weakness instead of hide it, there would be a different respect level, and maybe more interest in the study. A complete failure in the scientific method has caused this issue. This theory is neither right or wrong by the simple fact that it is only a theory and nothing more. If/when we have undeniable proof will this matter.

Have you ever thought about writing an e-book or guest authoring on other blogs?

I have a blog centered on the same topics you discuss and would really like to have you share some
stories/information. I know my readers would
value your work. If you’re even remotely interested,
feel free to shoot me an e-mail.